Page 202 of A Touch of Poison
“Get off me.” I pushed at his chest, but he caught my other arm.
“No, Katherine. I won’tget off you. You’re my wife and it’s about time you acted like one.” He shoved and I stumbled back, my heel hitting something.
For a horrible instant there was nothing under me, just air and the world tilting, tilting, tilting.
Then the breath whooshed out of me as I crashed into the coffee table. Glasses and jars smashed, unleashing a cacophony of scent. I tried to inhale, but my lungs spasmed, and I could only manage little squeaking gasps.
Just winded. I’d get my breath back in a second.
“I had to turn back from my trip, because no one would give me credit.” Robin closed in. “I bet that was you, wasn’t it? Whispering lies into people’s ears like the poisonous little bitch you are.”
Shaking my head, I clutched my stomach, not able to form any words.
“That’s why I had to come here. I practically begged your uncle to help me.” He bared his teeth as he towered over me, crowding my feet so I couldn’t place them on the floor and stand. “Do you have any idea how humiliating it is for a Viscount to beg someone for help, Katherine?Do you?” Spit flecked his lips as he shouted that last part. “Almost as humiliating as being called to Lunden by your wife’s uncle because she’s whoring herself around.”
Hewas humiliated? After I’d dirtied my hands in a dozen ways to pay off his debts? After I’d presented myself to a queen in rags? After I’d let unCavendish paw at me and set me to work to seduce a man I didn’t know?
What version of reality did he live in?
I managed to drag in one breath and another. “I’ve spent a decade clearing up your mess.” My voice came out hiccupy and fractured. “This one is entirely of your own making, and this time I’m not fixing it.”
He took half a step back, and I scrambled to my feet in the small space he left.
“You’re clutching your stomach.” His gaze crawled down me.
“I’m winded.” I edged to one side, trying to get from between him and the table.
“No.” He caught my wrist, fingers digging in. “No. You’re fatter too. That fae… you’re pregnant, aren’t you? You’ve been fucking him and now you’re carrying his child! After all these years of denying me an heir.”
“What?” I laughed.
It was the worst thing I could’ve done.
The backhanded strike sent me spinning. I almost caught myself on the table, but slipped off the side and landed hand-first on the floor.
Cold shock rolled through me. Something wrong.
My eyelids fluttered as I rolled to a sitting position, brain rattling, room spinning.
Then the pain erupted. A hot flush in my arm followed by an icy wave. I tried to move it and a fresh eruption rocked through me. When I looked down, bile lurched up my throat.
That angle wasn’t right.
Not right at all. In fact… there wasn’t meant to be an angle there in the middle of my forearm.
I blinked at it. “You’ve broken my arm.”
His shadow fell over me. “You needed a reminder of who I am. I think you need something more permanent, though.” He smiled.
He smiled.
And above that, his eyes glittered with pure malice.
That was when I knew.
He was going to kill me.
It wasn’t a question or even a thought but a certainty, like the earth beneath my feet.
